Monday, 1 September 2014

Challenge 19

It doesn't seem long ago that we were talking about the schools breaking up for their summer holidays and now we're talking about them going back! New school uniforms have been purchased, lunch boxes are ready to be filled and tissues are at hand for those mums whose youngsters are going to school for the first time.

What has Barbara and the Clarity team been up to in August?

Barbara had an all day extravaganza on Create and Craft and she was talking Christmas. Did you manage to get your bespoke stamp?

Then we've had the ice bucket challenge where Barbara nominated all of the design team to take part. If you're on facebook you will have seen them already, but if not check them all out below. Barbara has also set up a Just Giving page so that donations can be made to this worthy cause.

The lucky winner of the £50 Clarity voucher and our top 5 will be announced on Wednesday. Will you be one of the lucky winners?

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Here's the theme for our new challenge which will run throughout September:

Nature

(using Clarity stamps ONLY)

The challenge this month is all about "Nature", so you can take your pick whether you use your animal stamps, leaves, trees or any of the stencils within the Clarity collection. Why not go to town and create something 3D or paint a canvas. We would love to see your nature creations and you could also win a £50 voucher if you are randomly selected as our winner at the end of the month. I bet you like the sound of that one don't you?

My name is Massimo and I'm 6 1/2 years old. I've been crafting since I was young, starting at nursery with a lot of gluing, glittering and painting etc. Then it all changed about 2 years ago! My mum was watching this woman on telly who was stamping and making cool pictures and she was asking people to send in homework. My mum was sending something in and I wanted to send something too.

The first piece I sent was dreadful really, it was just blotches of colour all over the nice wreath my mum had stamped, but Barbara showed it just the same. I was so excited when I heard my name being mentioned I was jumping up and down and shouting "that's me"! So of course I wanted to do this again and started sending in homework every month. Seeing my cards on the telly was awesome.

Then I decided I wanted to meet Barbara so my mum took me with her to the NEC in November last year. I couldn't believe that Barbara was for real, I thought she lived in the telly! It was so cool and Barbara gave me the Clarity badge like all the grown ups too!

Next it was the gelli plate, I'm hooked on this. Splodging that paint on, using stencils and pulling those fab prints is quite addictive and gives me great pleasure. I love using all my mum's stash to create gorgeous prints.

Then suddenly the classroom disappeared off the telly, I couldn't understand why I couldn't send in my cards any more and why Barbara wasn't on the telly. So I'm actually doing less stuff now but occasionally I need a card and then I will go and have a look at our Clarity stamp collection and decide what to do. My favourite technique is creating landscapes with distress inks, brushes and masks.

My favourite question to my mum is "am I the best 6 year old crafter that you know?" and you know, she always answers "yes".

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Here's Massimo's card for this months challenge:

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There are several ways of entering the challenge:

BLOG - if you have a blog, click on the blue froggy link below and follow the instructions, remembering to link to your blog post and not just your blog

EMAIL - if you don't have a blog you can send a photo of your project to us and we'll enter it for you

claritystampchallenge@hotmail.com

If you have have any questions relating to this challenge please don't hesitate to contact us. We will answer as quickly as we can in the hope that we can make the Clarity Stamp Challenge go from strength to strength. We can't do this without you!

We hope you have fun with this challenge and we can't wait to see your projects. You have until 20.00 on 30th September (GMT) to enter.